Manuski means humanism in Marathi. A term used by Dr B.R.Ambedkar, a great humanist of India. This blog want stimulating debate without any prejudices of caste, religion and nationalism. It is about humanism and human rights. All freethinkers are welcome to contribute and participate in stimulating debates.

Friday, December 19, 2014

Fascist war against Humanity

Fascist war against Humanity

By Vidya Bhushan Rawat

The
slaughtering of over 140 children by the Pakistani Taliban is a grim reminder
of how religious rights have no faith in democracy and its order.That they can kill any one at their own will
and the authorities are left to react once they have done their ‘duty’ shows
how powerful have they become so far. Further, this reflects that the war on
terror has failed on all account. Just a day before this incident, we saw the
infamous Sydney show where a gunman kept hostage to so many visitors of the
café keeping the authorities guessing his motives and resulting in killings of
a few of the hostages. The killing spree
of the gangs and thugs in the name of religion continues world-over and it is a
matter of great concern as at the end of the day it is the common person who is
becoming the victim of their hate mission.

Pakistan’s
incident is a sad reminder of the existing situation there and the biggest crisis
the nation faces after its birth in 1947.It is true that idea of Pakistan was conceived by those who wanted a
political space for Muslims in which a majority including Mohammad Ali Jinnah
were secular to their core belief but immediately after the death of the first
generational leadership in Pakistan we have witnessed military rule, martial
law and anarchy in the street. Still till 1980s, Pakistan had a better economy
than India and in many things it was ahead including both our traditional
sports of Hockey and Cricket. It produced some of the finest teams. In Hockey
it actually replaced India since independence while it was a far better team
till 1980s than the Indian cricket team.

The
point I want to mention here is that there is no point in discussing whether
Pakistan was created rightly or wrongly as we can produce argument to prove
both the points. As an Indian passport holder, I cannot preach all the time
that it was wrong decision. When you are amidst a political movement, you need
to take a decision which all of us discuss years later. For any decision there
are no one single situation responsible but a series of events. How can the
condition of Muslims, their poverty and marginalization, communal riots not
justify partition? Contrary to it, the creation of Bangladesh and continuous
killings of innocent Muslims and minorities in Pakistan clearly indicate that
as a national state it failed miserably probably because Jinnah never wanted a
theocratic Pakistan. He was dreaming for a Pakistan of modern ideas which could
provide leadership to Islamic countries like Turkey.

Pakistan
today is not of the dreams of Jinnah. The military dictators killed the
constitution and vision of Jinnah and handed it over to Islamic
fundamentalists. When the people rose up against the martial law regime the
military leaders got legitimacy through Islamisation process in the country.
The long presence of Soviet forces in Afghanistan gave handle to Pakistan’s
military regime to extract maximum in terms of money and arms from United
States and other Western countries as each one of them was pitched against
Soviet supported Babarak Karamal and Nazibullah governments there. It is ironical how the ‘biggest’ and ‘best’
‘democracies’ in the world use religious rights to fight against communists,
Americans needed ‘religious rights’ and hence creation of Taliban to counter.
Zia ul Haq, the vilely dictator found it absolutely useful to fulfill his
agenda of ruling the Pakistan through Islamisation process which provided his
regime a legitimacy. Pakistan fought in between which constitution should be
used to run the government. In less than sixty years of its independence, it
reflected pathetically on the political leadership how they virtually created
extra-constitutional forces to counter the opponents and legitimized
themselves. Zia shamelessly went ahead ignoring international protest by
hanging his opponent Zulfikar Ali Bhutto. Pakistan slowly slipped into Islamic
anarchy. Apostasy became the biggest weapons in the hands of the Islamic
fanatics to threaten all those who tried to reason with people politically.
Minorities were hounded and threatened for speaking their voices and believing
in their faith. Zia’s Islamic goons were up in the street to threaten them most
of the time. Blasphemy law was the best way to target them, grab their
properties and convert them to Islam.

Zia’s
death resulted in forces of democracy gaining ground with Benazir Bhutto
becoming the prime minister. Internal fight for power among the political
parties always strengthened the army which continues to use Taliban and
Kashmiri Militants as the trump card against the opponent. It is a well-known
secret that the entire Kargil operation was done by General Parvez Musharraf
without even providing any information to his prime minister Nawaz Sharif.
Though Musharraf was a ‘forward looking’ general yet he did play different
games to compete with political parties. He was forced to retire from Pakistan
and political process brought Nawaz Sharif back to the country from his long
exile in Saudi Arabia. Asif Ali Zardari who was the president has to pave the
way for new Muslim League government which gave lots of hope but soon the
entire hopes evaporated. Pakistan is in deep turmoil now and if not things are
not brought under control now the dirt might spill beyond its boundaries.

Those
who justify Islamisation process of Pakistan did not understand that it would
turn the table on them. That initially the entire process actually eliminated
the religious minorities and their politics. Later, it claimed Ahmedis who the
Islamists said were not Muslims at all and have no right to read Quran and
enter into the mosques. The number of Hazaras or Shias killed in terrorist
violence in Pakistan is exorbitantly high.Pakistan today is facing the
biggest crisis and it is the creation of its state apparatus which suffered
from the ‘power’ of a ‘Hindustan’. We did not call it Hindustan as officially
India is called Bharat but Pakistani Muslim leadership in their attempt to
justify the creation of a Islamic state always termed India as ‘Hindustan’, a
term which is now being used by the Sangh Parivar and its propagated media in
high decibel.They also narrate the
similar stories of victimhood in partition that since Muslim got Pakistan,
Hindustan must be for Hindus.

Mohammad
Ali Jinnah was the champion of a secular society, for whom the problem of
Hindus and Muslims is not cultural but political in nature and therefore
immediately after independence he talked of a Pakistan which could be owned by
everyone irrespective of their faiths but then when you take to a wrong idea,
it will create wrong precedence. Pakistan’s
successive regimes used the religious thugs for their political purposes and
the result is today the state is feeling helpless in front of them. Whether it
is Hafiz Sayeed or any one else, Pakistan cannot watch helplessly and allow
them to spew venom against India but then we have our own Hafiz Sayed. In
democracy, they say, the ultimate judge is the people and hence if people have
elected them, hence we will have to listen to them and consider their ‘opinion’
important.

It
is good that Indian Prime Minister offered his condolences to victim of
Peshawar massacre of children. The gesture of schools moaning was great along
with show of solidarity by Indian Parliament but it is time we need to ponder. After the slaughtering of these innocent
children in Lahore, Indians are in‘preaching’
mood. Every channel is ‘guiding’ Pakistan of ‘war against terror’.
Unfortunately all of them keep quiet when similar things are happening in
India. Pakistan’s extra-constitutional apparatus is a fodder for right-wingers
here in India who are also bulldozing our constitution and threatening. There
is no difference between a Muzahid leader speaking in Pakistan and spewing
venom and the Shiv Sena leader or a Hindutva loudspeaker speaking the same way.
After this government came to power these loudspeakers are roaring and have
become louder.

Pakistan
is paying the price of the flirtations of its leaders and military regimes with
the religious rights. India that way was fortunate enough that immediately
after independence its leadership understood this and opted for a secular
India. Democracy may have lots of
follies and we complain about them still people have got that small window to
use their right which the theocracies and military regimes do not offer.
Theocracies result in fascist tendencies. India and Pakistan opted for
political democratic models but without challenging the existing social norms.
It would not be possible for political democracy to succeed in environment and
culture of theocracy that push for majoritarian tendencies and consider every
minority as a ‘dissent’ and dissent as a ‘threat’ to the country. While we
grew as political democracy but not really matured as political parties did not
have power to sideline the religious rights. We too started appeasing the
religious rights and ignoring the dangers of majoritarian communalism.
World-over, minorities suffer from identity crisis but in our societies the
majorities always believed that minorities are gaining at their cost.South Asia is suffering from that and each
community has to act responsibly because a majority community in Pakistan may
be a minority in India or elsewhere and similarly a majority community in India
is a minority elsewhere. Whatever we do to our minorities’ impact their psyche
elsewhere resulting in deep-rooted prejudices as well as threats of
intimidations.

South Asia has to grow by secular
democratic process. The imposition of religious values and religion by state is
dangerous. Can we imagine a South Asia with common text books, common history
books and common social studies ? Is it possible ? It could be possible if we
want to make our children better human being and not through religious agendas
of our particular thoughts. Yes, a common thread could be humanist principles
of calling a spade a spade. We all know that all religion in the world talks of
common brotherhood. Obviously none talks of sisterhood but at the same point of
time, we should know that all the religions despite their ‘greatness’ also
resulted in holocausts and killings of innocents. How can we justify an Islamic
nation if we oppose a Hindu Rastra? If we oppose a Buddhist nation, we cannot
support a Christian theocracy. For every theocracy the minorities are the
biggest obstacles in their long term agenda. Theocratic ideas are nothing but
fascist ideas and that is why these days it is not just the state but its tame
surrender to extra constitutional forces is giving rise to fascist elements in
our countries.

If
Pakistan is feeling helpless to Hafiz Sayed then we too do not have a great
record. All those who are crying to finish Christianity and Islam from India
are roaring and roaming free in the country. It is this tendency of
majoritarianism that gives rise to intimidation and threat to minorities and dissent.
Such tendencies often hijack the democratic process and put the society to the
hands of religious rights who are afraid of modern ideas so they will speak
against girls education. They will speak against love marriages. Yes, they will
hate everything that is modern which they will term as ‘westernization’ while
enjoying everything that the western societies produced. Culture becomes a
handle for them to beat the opponents. If we compare these fascists in India
and Pakistan, we can find commonality among them. They threaten the minorities
with dire consequences.They justify
violence against women and blame the women for violence on them and they use
the vulnerability of the state apparatus.

India and Pakistan can learn a lot from
their miserable failures. It is not a time for preaching. It is time to act.
Promote secular liberal values in your lives. Promote that kind of polity and
encourage people to people contact. As long as we support violence in the name
of religion, we will not succeed. Pakistan
and India should focus on their poor, on their women and work towards removing
those hurdles which are the bane for our society. We must work for a secular
Pakistan in the very similar way as I say, we must strengthen a secular India.
How great would it be when the polity in the both the countries is secular and
children learn common history and culture. Weakening of secular forces in our
countries has already harmed our societies a lot and if we wish our children
should grow, it is time, we must work for secular humanist societies otherwise
the religious fascists are ready to kill you anytime without having any remorse
and remember they always have a book to justify their mindless violence.

Followers

About Me

Learning through working. Working at the grassroots made me realise the big difference between those who claim to represent communities as well as the communities themselves. Common man is crushed between the ambitions of various individuals to lead and dominate. The dominant and high numbered communities will always dominate our discourse and the most marginalised are losing in this entire discourse. That is the reason why Mushahar remain at the marginalised and the issue of manual scavenging still not on our top agenda and to eliminate that the community has to decide its own organisations..

I am devoted to freedom of ideas and expression. I personally feel that we in the subcontinent want to dominate and control our discourse and each one of is a ultra nationalist in terms of their caste and community. Nationalism is not just national and political but it is equally in term of religion and caste. I feel each kind of nationalism is a dominant discourse which deny the dissenter a right to speak.

At the end, we all want to listen the truth suitable to us.. we have become expertised in the art of speaking truth of convenience. As long as that remain hall mark of our society and we speak to already converts, this society will remain stagnant, it will always try to control our ideas and choices. We need to oppose any such perception, ideas that want to control our mind and victimise us.

To understand India further, I feel, it is good to do foot walk, ( Padyatras) to various parts of the country. I have so far done it thrice covering nearly 1500-2000 kilometers. It is always interesting to see how people are coping their issues and what is the reason of their exploitation.